Twenty-three Turkish citizens and 13 foreign nationals were killed by suicide bombers in an attack at Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday night, a Turkish presidential official said.
Reuters earlier reported a Ukrainian and an Iranian were among the dead. Around 239 people were wounded in the attack, which has been blamed on Islamic State militants.
The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings this year in Turkey, part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State and struggling to contain spillover from neighboring Syria's war.
President Tayyip Erdogan said the attack should serve as a turning point in the global fight against terrorism, which he said had "no regard for faith or values".
Five Saudis and two Iraqis were among the dead, a Turkish official said. Citizens from China, Jordan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Iran and Ukraine were also among the 13 foreigners killed.
One attacker opened fire in the departures hall with an automatic rifle, sending passengers diving for cover and trying to flee, before all three blew themselves up in or around the arrivals hall a floor below, witnesses and officials said.
Video footage showed one of the attackers inside the terminal building being shot, apparently by a police officer, before falling to the ground as people scattered. The attacker then blew himself up around 20 seconds later.
"It's a jigsaw puzzle … The authorities are going through CCTV footage, witness statements," a Turkish official said.
The Dogan news agency said autopsies on the three bombers, whose torsos were ripped apart, had been completed and that they may have been foreign nationals, without citing its sources.
Broken ceiling panels littered the kerb outside the arrivals section of the international terminal. Plates of glass had shattered, exposing the inside of the building, and electric cables dangled from the ceiling. Cleanup crews swept up debris and armed police patrolled as flights resumed.
"This attack, targeting innocent people is a vile, planned terrorist act," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters at the scene in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
"There is initial evidence that each of the three suicide bombers blew themselves up after opening fire," he said.
No group had claimed responsibility more than 12 hours after the attack, which began around 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday, local time.
Victims of many nationalities
Istanbul's position bridging Europe and Asia has made Ataturk airport, Turkey's largest, a major transit hub for passengers across the world. The Istanbul governor's office said 109 of the 239 people hospitalized had since been discharged.
"There were little babies crying, people shouting, broken glass and blood all over the floor. It was very crowded, there was chaos. It was traumatic," said Diana Eltner, 29, a Swiss psychologist who was traveling from Zurich to Vietnam but had been diverted to Istanbul after she missed a connection.
Delayed travelers were sleeping on floors at the airport, a Reuters witness said, as some passengers and airport staff cried and hugged each other. Police in kevlar vests with automatic weapons prowled the kerbside as a handful of travelers and Turkish Airlines crew trickled in
The national carrier said it had canceled 340 flights although its departures resumed after 8:00 am.
Paul Roos, 77, a South African tourist on his way home, said he saw one of the attackers "randomly shooting" in the departures hall from about 50 meters away.
"He was wearing all black. His face was not masked … We ducked behind a counter but I stood up and watched him. Two explosions went off shortly after one another. By that time he had stopped shooting," Roos told Reuters.
"He turned around and started coming towards us. He was holding his gun inside his jacket. He looked around anxiously to see if anyone was going to stop him and then went down the escalator … We heard some more gunfire and then another explosion, and then it was over."
